Key takeaways: There is no single recipe for a Japanese rice cracker. Senbei starts with everyday uruchi rice that is milled into flour, steamed, and kneaded into a dough. Okaki and arare start with glutinous mochi rice that is steamed whole and kneaded into mochi. The two doughs split at the very first stage, then rejoin for the shared finishing work: balancing moisture, drying, resting, a multi-stage bake, and seasoning. Iwatsuka Seika, founded in Nagaoka City, Niigata in 1947, runs both paths at scale using 100% domestic Japanese rice milled fresh in-house.

The American grocery aisle hides its food-making by design. A bag of chips arrives in a sealed metallic envelope, and the steps that produced it are invisible to the eater. The bag is the marketing.

Japanese beika, the umbrella term for the whole family of rice snacks, belongs to a slower and more visible tradition. Ask how senbei is made and you get one answer. Ask how okaki is made and you get a different one. A common shorthand claims that every rice cracker is simply steamed and then pounded. It is not. The first written reference to senbei in Japan dates to 737 CE (Wikipedia, Senbei), and the craft settled into two genuinely different routes that share only their finishing steps. Iwatsuka Seika, the rice-cracker maker founded in Nagaoka City, Niigata in 1947 (Iwatsuka corporate history), runs both side by side. What follows is each one, in order.

Two doughs, not one process

The fork happens at the very beginning, decided entirely by the rice. Senbei is built on uruchi-mai, the ordinary non-glutinous short-grain rice that sits on the Japanese dinner table every night. Okaki and arare are built on mochigome, the glutinous rice used for New Year mochi. Those two grains behave so differently under heat that they demand different opening moves.

For senbei, the rice is turned into flour first, then cooked. For okaki and arare, the rice is cooked whole first, then worked into a smooth mochi paste. That single difference is why the phrase "all rice crackers are steamed and then pounded" is wrong: neither route pounds anything, and the senbei route mills before it steams. Once the dough is formed, the stages are largely shared, so the finished snacks feel like cousins rather than strangers.

The senbei path vs the okaki path at a glance

The table compresses the whole story. The sections below walk each route in order, then follow both to the shared finishing line where drying, resting, baking, and seasoning turn raw dough into something with a snap.

It starts with the rice, and the rice starts with the grain

Everything downstream is set by the grain chosen at the top. Uruchi-mai carries a mix of two starches, amylose and amylopectin, and that amylose is what gives a finished senbei its firm, clean break. Mochigome is nearly all amylopectin, which is what lets a dried mochi piece puff outward under heat. Pick the wrong rice and the cracker either refuses to puff or refuses to snap. The chemistry, not the cook, makes the call.

Grade and freshness matter as much as variety. Iwatsuka works with 100% domestic Japanese rice sourced from growing regions across the country, a standard the company formalized in 2010 (Iwatsuka corporate history). The rice is delivered to the plant twice a day, milled in-house at low heat to avoid scorching the starch, and used fresh rather than stored. Niigata Prefecture, where the company is headquartered, ships roughly 60% of all of Japan's rice crackers (JETRO, Discovery Niigata), so the region carries deep production heritage even though the rice comes from all over Japan. For more on the grain, see our companion piece on Japanese rice and Niigata craft: what makes great beika.

The senbei path: mill, steam, knead

Senbei does not begin at a steamer. It begins at a mill. The washed and soaked uruchi rice is ground into a fine flour before any heat touches it, the exact reverse of what most people assume.

Milling the raw rice into flour

The soaked grain is milled to a soft, even flour. Iwatsuka does this in-house at low heat so the starch is not damaged before it is cooked, and the fresh flour is used quickly rather than held. Get the grind wrong and every stage that follows inherits the flaw.

Steaming the flour, then kneading it into dough

The flour is steamed to gelatinize the starch, then worked into a smooth, cohesive dough. Kneading is often done more than once, with rest between passes, because a well-developed senbei dough has to hold a thin sheet without cracking and still spring back under a fingertip. Underworked dough tears when rolled; overworked dough bakes dense.

Rolling and cutting

The finished dough is rolled into thin sheets and cut into discs, typically round and a few centimeters across. Uniform thickness matters more than it looks: a disc thick in the middle stays moist inside when the edges are already done in the oven.

The okaki and arare path: steam whole, knead into mochi

The mochi-rice route does the opposite at the top. Nothing is milled. The mochigome is cooked whole first, then worked into a paste.

Steaming the whole grains

After a longer soak than uruchi rice gets, the glutinous grains are steamed whole until fully cooked and glossy. This is the same cooked mochi rice that becomes New Year rice cakes. Steaming rather than boiling keeps the grain intact and sticky, exactly what the next stage needs.

Kneading the steamed rice into mochi

The hot steamed grains are kneaded until the grain structure disappears into a smooth, elastic mochi. Modern lines use mechanical kneaders, but the goal is unchanged: work the whole-grain structure completely away while keeping the mass cohesive and stretchy. This is also where certain add-ins go in. Roasted soybeans are folded into the mochi for Mame Mochi, giving it a nutty character.

Molding, cooling, and cutting while soft

The finished mochi is molded into blocks and cooled quickly. That rapid cooling controls how the starch sets, the retrogradation that firms the mochi into something a blade can cut cleanly. While the blocks are still soft, they are cut with water-coated blades so the sticky mochi does not tear. Larger irregular pieces become okaki; small pieces become arare.

Where the paths rejoin: drying, resting, baking, seasoning

Once a senbei disc and an okaki piece exist, the rest of the work is broadly shared. Both need their moisture pulled down to a narrow window, both rest, both go through a staged bake, and both are seasoned hot. This finishing line is where a careful maker separates from a rushed one.

Balancing moisture through slow drying

The formed pieces go into a controlled drying environment for a stretch that can run from a day to several, depending on the product and the season. Low, steady conditions draw water out of the interior gradually. Rush it with high heat and the outside case-hardens: the surface locks dry while the core stays wet, and a piece like that never bakes evenly.

Resting to even out the interior

Drying is followed by a rest. Leaving the pieces to sit lets the remaining moisture redistribute from the wetter center toward the drier surface, so the whole piece reaches equilibrium before it meets real heat. Skip the rest, a common shortcut, and pieces blister or crack unevenly in the oven.

The three-stage bake

The bake is not a single blast of heat. It runs in three stages. A preheat stage brings the piece up gently and drives off surface moisture. An expansion stage is where interior moisture flashes to steam: in a senbei this firms the disc into its signature brittle snap; in an okaki or arare it is the puff, where the piece can swell dramatically as trapped steam pushes the amylopectin structure outward. A finish stage sets color and aroma as surface starches brown. Too cool and the piece stays dense and pale; too hot and the surface scorches before the inside has expanded.

Seasoning while hot

The last stage gives each beika its identity, and timing is everything. A brushed soy glaze on a senbei has to meet enough residual heat to caramelize into a glassy mahogany sheet, but not so much that it burns to a bitter char. Salt straight from the oven makes a clean savory shio finish; a wrap of nori adds a marine note; roasted-soybean coatings suit the mochi-rice pieces. Iwatsuka's house philosophy, summed up as 米・技・心 (rice, technique, heart), pushes toward restraint here (Iwatsuka brand philosophy), so you taste the rice rather than a wall of seasoning covering for it.

What a heritage maker controls that a cheap one skips

Two crackers can follow the same named stages and still taste nothing alike, because quality lives in how tightly each stage is held. Three controls do most of it.

The first is the rice: 100% domestic Japanese grain, delivered twice daily and milled fresh in-house at low heat, rather than commodity flour bought in and stored. The second is patience. Drying and resting are the longest, least glamorous parts of the process, and they are the first things a throughput-driven operation compresses. The third is finishing restraint, the kokoro in Iwatsuka's rice-technique-heart triad, where lighter seasoning only works if the rice underneath can carry the snack on its own. To see how the finished textures differ across the lineup, our guide to the full texture range across Beika's crackers maps light-crisp to hearty-crunch, and what beika actually means as a category ties the whole family together.

Frequently asked questions

Are all Japanese rice crackers made the same way?

No. There are two genuinely different routes. Senbei is made from non-glutinous uruchi rice milled into flour, steamed, and kneaded into a dough. Okaki and arare are made from glutinous mochi rice that is steamed whole and then kneaded into mochi. The idea that every rice cracker is simply steamed and then pounded is a myth: the okaki route steams before it kneads, and the senbei route mills into flour first.

Why is senbei milled into flour but okaki is not?

It comes down to the rice. Uruchi rice mills into a clean flour that gelatinizes evenly when steamed, giving senbei its firm, snappable body. Glutinous mochi rice is prized for the stretchy mochi it forms when steamed whole and kneaded, so milling it into flour first would waste the very quality that makes okaki and arare what they are.

Why do okaki and arare puff but senbei stays flat?

Starch chemistry decides it. Mochigome is nearly all amylopectin, so when a dried mochi piece hits the expansion stage of the bake, trapped moisture flashes to steam and pushes the structure outward into a light, puffed texture. Uruchi rice contains amylose as well, which restrains that expansion, so senbei firms into a dense, brittle snap instead.

How long does the whole process take?

It depends on the product and the season, but the slow parts dominate the clock. Soaking runs hours, and the drying and resting stages can stretch from a day to several. The active steps, milling or kneading, steaming, forming, baking, and seasoning, fit into working days. Large operations run many batches in parallel, but each individual cracker still passes through the same unhurried sequence.

What is the most common failure point?

The drying stage. It is the longest and least visible part of the process, so it is the first thing a rushed operation shortens. Push it with high heat and the piece case-hardens: the surface locks dry while the interior stays wet, so it bakes unevenly, puffs incompletely, and tastes hollow. Heritage makers like Iwatsuka Seika hold the drying window rather than trimming it.

What does the phrase “steamed then pounded” get wrong?

It is simply not how these crackers are made. Neither route pounds. Senbei is milled into flour before it is steamed, then kneaded rather than pounded. Okaki and arare are steamed as whole grains and then kneaded into mochi, with no pounding step at all. The shorthand describes a process that does not match either route.

Sources & references

1. Iwatsuka Seika Co., Ltd. Company History. https://www.iwatsukaseika.co.jp/about/history/: founded 1947 in Nagaoka City, Niigata; 100% domestic Japanese rice commitment since 2010; in-house milling.
2. Iwatsuka Seika. Oishisa no Tsuikyū. https://www.iwatsuka.jp/oishisa/: 米・技・心 (rice, technique, heart) brand philosophy and finishing restraint.
3. Wikipedia. Senbei. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senbei: 737 CE first written reference; uruchi-rice milling-and-steaming route.
4. Wikipedia. Mochi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi: steaming whole mochi rice and working it into mochi.
5. Wikipedia. Glutinous rice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutinous_rice: amylopectin starch composition and puffing behavior.
6. JETRO. Discovery Niigata: Food. https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/discoveryniigata/food/: Niigata ships roughly 60% of Japan's rice crackers.
7. The Japan Store. Senbei 101: From History to Varieties of Japanese Round Rice Crackers. thejapanstore.us: senbei manufacturing overview.
8. Web Japan. Niigata, The Rice Capital of Japan. https://web-japan.org/trends/07_food/jfd071226.html: Niigata rice-production context.